The reconstruction of innovative studies
– selected mechanisms
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Uniwersytet w Białymstoku
Instytut Socjologii i Kognitywistyki
Zakład Epistemologii i Kognitywistyki
Publication date: 2017-11-16
JoMS 2017;34(3):197-208
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
The aim of the article is the reconstruction of innovation studies. The object of
analysis will be selected knowledge forming mechanisms applied within this scientific
area. There will be made an attempt to prove that the idea of innovation was
used as the element of hegemonic strategy imposed by international organizations
in order to maintain the existing rules of social reproduction. The methodological
perspective adopted in the analysis is the constructivist model of cognition, among
others, represented by A. Zybertowicz. According to it, the knowledge is determined
by the circumstances and mechanisms of the social structures acting in the processes
of converting interpretation into facts. Consequently, one is searching for the answer
to a question: what role in this process play institutions of the power and money
and their rhetorical devices. The research problem is analysed through the prism
of two mechanisms: the motion of selective tradition and the strategy of expertise
involved. Analysis of existing data and organizations’ reports, reveals that associates
of the organizations, e.g. Ch. Freeman, constructed knowledge about the innovation
on the foundation of ideological pre assumptions entered in their mission. Also the
mechanism of selective tradition had no basis in the form of scientific research in the
area of innovation studies, still it was applied due to the hegemonic rationality of the
international actors. Therefore, in the field of innovation studies, the knowledge does
not perform teleological function nor reach the essence of things, which in scientific
cognition is the true, but allows to maintain the state of hegemony for prevailing
classes. Paradoxically, innovation studies does not provide much information about
innovativeness itself.
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